Challenged

Thursday

I read blogs..I do. Some are more for the pictures obviously. Some are amusing..some are like car crashes..I can only look at them for so long...until I click the red "X".

It isn't often I find a blog that intrigues me..that I am interested in..that plays with my emotions. One that is amusing one day..sad the next..and that I find some sort of kinship to. Take a look at my blog roll. There are hundreds of blogs listed under "The BLM Back Room" and "BLM Other Blogs". Yet only a choice few make it to "the Library".

I hardly ever speak of another blog here..probably a handful of times I've done so. I don't recommend things to my readers..we all have agendas, we're all big boys (and girls) and can decide for ourselves what to look at.

Underduhrainbows is a blog worthy of "the Library". Only around since March 2011, but apparently it's the reincarnation of a blogger from hiatus. It's the rantings and ravings of a 20 something year old. He writes his manifest, and tells us the the reason behind his blog:

...beyond all these things concerning my life, enjoying college, applying for jobs/internships, looking at graduate schools, all I really want is to see what's over the rainbow...again.

Often he's funny..and at the same time self-deprecating. Sometimes he even worries me...

When I was in the closet and when I used to have a blog where I did everything for my sake, I constantly fantasized what it was like to live in the out. I wondered what it felt like if people knew I had the entire Glee soundtrack on my Ipod. How would they respond if they heard me belt out songs from Wicked? What if they knew my boyfriend, Cristiano Renaldo, abused me because he was incapable of showing love?

I'm sorry to say that I don't always understand what he writes...maybe it's over my head..maybe it's under my head. But being in his head is interesting nonetheless. Yet, at times I wonder if he's just an over-inebriated spaced out druggie...

Last night, I killed two 40s, (Colt 45 is my brand) and several beers before I finally tapped out next to another passed out gay. I actually thanked myself for not hitting on him. I remember discussing carefully with myself if I wanted to play with his hair while he was passed out. It'd be a gamble obviously because he'd have done two things, start sucking on my fingers or recoil in horror at my beastly figure. I'm glad I just slept next to him and waited for him to make the first move. I woke up at 9AM today with all my clothes on, and him not as attractive as I thought he was. Very glad that I didn't try to tap him.

But apparently, he does have high aspirations:

...I promise you, dear anonymous readers, that I will one day be a beautiful swan who will get so much sexxx and cock inside me that you'll look forward to reading what I have to say about my sex life. Maybe I will even be a dove, symbolic of love, finally able to breathe. Actually, fuck birds. I'll be a man holding the hands of another man, and feel content and satisfaction and happiness just by that act alone, without impairment, without the stench of sexxx. I promise myself this every day so I don't jump off bridges, shoot up a motherfucking place, or if it's even possible, drink myself, with a smile on my face and tears in my eyes, to death.

He has issues (don't we all)..and he's happy to let us see the oddness, the complexity, the strangeness that is Under the Rainbow:

“Let me fuck you,” I said 30 minutes later, pushing his knees to his chest

"No. Don't...”

I gave up, “fine. Then fuck me...” I inched closer on top of him, grabbing his cock and putting right in front of my (insert orifice).

“No. I don't even know you...”

“So?”

“So we don't love each other,” he replied.

“So.”

“So we don't love each other.”

Is this guy serious?

I almost threw up when he said that, not just because of the watered down jungle juice or the bad beer. I almost threw up because of how completely ludicrous he sounded, his reason for not fucking, “we don't love each other.” As if people needed love in order to procreate, or in our case, needed love in order to get off. Love has nothing to do with sex I wanted to tell him. I wanted to berate him for being dumb fucking kid, for believing in Hallmark cards and Julia Robert's movies. I wanted to laugh at his face, and call him a faggot, belittle him for being so naïve. Instead I sucked him off.

But, he gets political too. On the death of Osama Bin Laden he writes:

And I can't think of anything but Obama talking to Michelle saying, "hey baby, I just got him can I put it in your pooper tonight?" And Michelle answering, "just for tonight Barry. Just for tonight...just the tip...

He's no idiot though and it's apparent. He writes that he graduated Magna Cum Laude and his writing, while sometimes comes out like stream of consciousness, is clearly well thought out. He tells about his childhood, his coming out stories, and entries that, although we are very much different..shows we are also, very much alike:

The great drama of the closeted gay son or husband or brother or father is the desire to alleviate pain by causing pain to the people they love, by admitting a lie continuously told despite acts of love, by dashing expectations, by changing the dreams and hopes of the disbelieving other. And I am not ready to participate, I'd rather leave. The closeness we shared together emphasized the struggle and the pain of lying to the people I loved, I I had to leave because I wasn't ready for this great drama. This drama meant that I would have to reign their hopes in, slap them in the face with reality, and leave them trapped at the moment I told them just as I was trapped to every moment I didn't tell them.

He writes about hook-ups, finding dates, dating sites, and he writes about his family. He tells stories about his life, his faith, and weird, funny sex stories.Ultimately, what draws me in is the emotional rollercoaster that he rides..because I've been on that ride before too..and probably will be on it again (so will I). He's introspective:

What is it about me, that makes me shun human contact, even amongst friends, the deeper fears about my life? Because my fears isn't about money or employment, it's about love, about purpose, about meaning, and these are things I can't just say to someone I'll be drinking with, someone I'll be saying “what's up” to. And what is there to say anyway? From those friends or even from strangers? Other than “that's life” “everything will be fine” “you're a miracle.”

...and when he writes you empathize. His writing is descriptive..invokes feelings. It's like a movie developing before your eyes:

But the bar was essentially closed. People had found their partners and last call meant I had to find mine soon. I looked to the side again and saw the old man staring at me. Still.

“Hey.” I sighed.

He smiled back. “Hi.”

I only wanted to ask him one thing, “can you buy me a drink?” because alcohol was an escape for me that night and two years after the fact, from the isolation and the homesickness living in a foreign country can engender, living in a world that I never seem to be a part of. The blacking out. The unconsciousness. The missing memories. The hangover. I loved it all. But more than that, it provided a brief window of time to make choices I never would have followed through otherwise. Like asking for help.

So instead of a drink, “can I ask you a question?”

"Sure,” he said. Smiling still, with all the warmness and gentleness of an old koala bear.

“Doesn't it...” choosing my words wisely, “um, so are you with someone?”

“You mean like a ---” despite closing time, the bar's music was on full blast, and his English accent barely audible.

“Like a partner.”

“Oh no! Hah, I have a friend but...” his words dying off to music and my inability to understand his mumbling English.

“So like...I mean...doesn't it get lonely?” The alcohol speaking. I'd never be so blunt and intrusive. But I looked at him then. Curious and determined to call him out on any lies or eject his truths.

“It does...”

Good, that's what I wanted to hear, someone to tell me I'm not wrong in believing life sucks, that crying over it, crying to end it isn't youthful misguidance.

He kept smiling but maybe not. Maybe it was the shape of his mouth, sculpted after years of life that spoke more of better times than worse times that gave him the effect of contentment. It had a quality of reassurance supported by his age which no logic can ever deny. He knew things, his smile said, he's seen things and he knew things, and the rest of my life is just a matter of learning them. And laugh lines.

“I...it's just that...I don't see the point. Like. What's the point? And. Like. I don't ever know why I keep on going. I just, kinda want it to end. Just. I'm just so.”

He thought for a minute what to say, “it does get lonely.”

“AND doesn't that bother you? For SO long...Aren't you?”

“I'm doing fine. There's times but for the most part...” he looked away, to the side, thought of what he actually felt, as if staring into another person would influence his real emotions, so many of our emotions already are, tinged, moved about by other people. “I'm fine.”

“I'm sorry. I have. I have trouble just believing that. Like. I'm only 21 and I just see the rest of my life, and it's just. Dreadful. It's horrible. I can't imagine ever doing anything, the loneliness, it's just going to keep on happening. And it's not the being alone part, it's the contentment, I ---”

“You'll be fine.” He said with such reassurance I had nothing else to say. Just looked. He seemed too knowing.

“You'll be fine.” He said again, this time with a nod of his head and a smile to the rest of the crowd as they rushed out the door. He was too warm not to believe. To say something, so simply and with too much confidence, it moved about inside me.

With such reassurance, our conversation didn't need much of anything else, it just paused but I wanted to give him something, maybe a kiss from me to him, like in the movie Shortbus. I always found that scene, when handsome Jay Brennan kisses the very old mayor of New York to be one of its most touching.

“Listen,” I said. Understandingly now, gentler, I was disarmed.

“Are you going to be at Pride next week ?” I half-remembered Oxford's pride week was the coming week.

“Of course!” he said.

“Can I ask you another question? Um, so,” chuckled to myself, not only reassured but elevated because of three little words he uttered and because I knew I didn't have to sleep with that deep pit in my stomach, that that night was going to be peaceful. And sometimes, this is enough to keep me going, just no bad thoughts.

All because he said, “you'll be fine.” So in more equal terms than when we started, as a favor between friends more than advantage, “do you mind buying me a drink?”

Go read Underduhrainbows. Read it because it will make you sad for him, it will make you laugh at him. Read it because you'll wonder why he's so fucked up sometimes..because you'll think he's a drunk, a degenerate, bordering on depression, suicidal.

Read it because when you do..you'll see images of yourself and that's what good writing is all about.